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Breath of a Nation — Animated CO2 Map

By Andrew C. Revkin April 7, 2008 2:45 pmApril 7, 2008 2:45 pm

Scientists have come up with a new way to precisely track daily and local patterns of carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels by power plants, factories, and vehicle traffic. The resulting database and maps provide a view of the “industrial metabolism” of our combustion-powered lives, Kevin Gurney, the leader in the project and an atmospheric scientist at Purdue, told me today.

A YouTube video produced by the team, which did the work with funding from NASA and the Department of Energy, includes fascinating animations showing the daily burst of emissions as industry and traffic kick into gear, and also reveals regional patterns showing that the Southeast is a bigger contributor to emissions than researchers realized.

The researchers said the work is not merely a curiosity, but could help provide reliable monitoring of emissions, down to the level of particular power plants or factories. This could help verify reductions in emissions under state or federal programs or laws capping carbon dioxide and allow trading of credits earned by cutting emissions.

The initial analysis, limited to 2002, plumbed detailed hourly air-quality measurements and other data that indirectly allow the team to backtrack to how much fuel was being burned, Dr. Gurney said. More recent years are being studied now. The result is maps that are 100 times more detailed that previous federal surveys of such emissions, which also are compiled on a monthly, not hourly, basis. The mapping will also be extended into Mexico and Canada.

Purdue is involved in a global-scale carbon dioxide mapping effort, called the Hestia Project, that it says will eventually do for the planet what the initial Vulcan project is doing for the country. Awareness is the first step toward changing behavior, they say.

There is a slight change in the graph of intra-annual CO2 levels from Mauna Loa. If this actually results in peak CO2 being less this year than less, it well lend support to the theory that the recent CO2 rise has been outgassing from the oceans. In other words, CO2 might have been rising because the earth is warming not vice versa. Anti-causal rather than just correlated. Then not only would the demonization of CO2 be a red herring, it would be even more fishy.

Paul Krugman writes in ‘Grains Gone Wild’ today about the biofoolishness. He mistakenly blames the invasion of Iraq and global warming for the crisis, choosing as a result of his cognitive dissonance to point at those two factors, instead of frankly understanding that it was misunderstanding about CO2, and an overeliance on central planning in the form of subsidies to the biofuel industry, that has precipitated this crisis.

It’s been a trifecta, soak the taxpayers, starve the poor, delude the warmers. What next?
============================

“it well lend support to the theory that the recent CO2 rise has been outgassing from the oceans”

Kim, for this to be the case, ocean acidity would have to be decreasing as CO2 leaves the water to enter the atmosphere. We know the opposite to be true, that CO2 concentrations in the ocean are increasing and causing lower pH (higher acidity), which may be even more damaging to life than increasing temperatures.

Undoubtedly in past climate changes, increasing temps did in fact cause CO2 to move from the ocean to the air as solubility of a gas in a liquid decreases with higher temps. But today, even with higher temps, the ocean is absorbing more CO2 as a result of our emissions.

Useful animations, thanks. The regional dependence doesn’t differ from the population or GDP maps too much, as expected. The “evil” regions with the CO2 “poison” are pretty much the same places as the populated or rich ones. ;-)

But the clouds around are interesting and show how CO2 needs days to move in between continents. The altitude profiles surprised me by the huge variations of the CO2 concentrations during days and weeks. It would be very naive to imagine that there is globally 385 ppmv everywhere.

krugman’s bow to co2 and climate change is utterly kneejerk; it has become the prerequisite kissing of the pope’s ring, a kneel to the authority of the new leftist universalist religion. it is nevertheless as despicable as it is mindless.

kim (1) — Just so nobody is mislead by your maunderings, NOAA measures the uptake/outgassing of the oceans. The net continues to be that the oceans are taking up CO2 and have been since the measurements were first started.

The world has been warming (noticably) for the last fifty years due to the net increase of global warming (so-called greenhouse) gases.

Wow. Great idea, great visuals. Yes, awareness if a very important first step to action.

[A very good series of articles about psychology of climate change awareness was recently written by a very good reporter for IPS news service, InterPress Service, based in the Americas, named Stephen Leahy and can be found here, four articles in a series from April 1 to April 4. Should be required reading for everyone. Dr Caldeira and other experts who appear here on Dot Earth are also quoted in the series. Take a look:]

an over[r]eliance on central planning…delude the warmers…bow to co2 and climate change is utterly kneejerk; the prerequisite kissing of the pope’s ring, a kneel to the authority of the new leftist universalist religion. it is nevertheless as despicable as it is mindless.

Oh, yeah. Beautiful.

I think the self-marginalized fringe should continue to communicate in this way, using fear phrases, FUD phrases, and ideological marker phrases instead of words strung together cogently to express a thought.

See, that way, if you actually somehow get access to decision-makers, they can tune you out as soon as they hear these phrases and spend their time productively.

More then revealing to see this map in motion. Combined with the next blog about traffic in Manhattan and remembering the traffic in LA on the freeways and seeing that it is not only Manhattan that is emitting enormous amounts of CO2 but the entire coastal region really makes one wonder what could be done to get to a time when a map such as this would be much less profound.
I realize that was a long sentence. I had a neighbor in Philly and would go out with him to deliver special chairs and some days we would really put on a lot of miles. It seemed strange to me and made me wonder how much incidental driving people are doing. Perhaps this is also a mentality problem. Perhaps people really have to go 20 miles to get a hairbrush and another 20 miles to talk with someone and then go 30 miles to pick up the kids at school.
If people’s driving habits were mapped would they reveal a lot of unessecary, or indulgent driving, and if so and they modified the extremes of the distances and frequency of excursions, would the CO2 map show more modified colorations?
Great job Purdue, waiting to see the world.

*sigh* Ok, folks. I am not an emotions-driven environmentalist, nor do I believe the ‘debunking’ of data that conservative elements constantly employ to cast doubt on scientific research that counters the needs of industry.

That said, it seems that the evidence is mounting that our environment is in a state of change. The more we learn the more it seems as if natural cycles beyond our control or influence *may* be the greatest contributing factors.

BUT – this is not an excuse to ignore the evidence that we, too, are contributing mightly to the current warming of our world, nor does it suggest that we can sit back, change nothing and declare it’s completely out of our control.

We need to consider *all* of the data available and continue research to find ways to mitigate our contributions, and work with the natural changes that occur around us.

Appropo of nothing apparently, I am amazed. From my first interest in this subject and the visiting and studying of the major and minor sites like Real Climate and Climate Audit and the blogs, I have been led to believe that “CO2 is a well mixed gas”. Now apparently, it ain’t so. There is a lot of variability. Well, of course there is.

Then posters like Mr. Benson in #7 blithly exclaim, “Just so nobody is mislead by your maunderings, NOAA measures the uptake/outgassing of the oceans”. As if there is no variability in global ocean CO2 uptake and variability with temperature gradients from approximately 90F to 30F. So explain the fineness of the sampling grid and the frequency of the measurements, and the analysis to derive a definitive figure.

I am becoming convinced that there is no global this or that. Like politics, all climate is local.

We need to consider *all* of the data available and continue research to find ways to mitigate our contributions, and work with the natural changes that occur around us.

Indeed! Where is the denialists’ data? Nooo, not pictures of thermometer boxes** taken with no protocols, but real collected data. Field work. Notes taken. Sleep in tents.

Where are the denialists’ data collecting efforts? Where are their papers analyzing their collected data? Where is their alternative network? Their tree cores? Their ice cores? Their boreholes? Their foram layers collected from sed cores? Their analyses showing CO2 doesn’t affect climate (*snork*…erm…sorry)? Their collected letters/intercepted e-mails showing environmentalists/scientists are in cahoots for funding? The funding records matched with outcome manipulation? Do denialists have any of this? Something? Anything?

Hello?

Hello?

Anyone?

[crickets chirping]

Best,

D

** Measuring temperatures would be nice, but is apparently too much to ask.

I wonder how CO2 concentrations spatially correlate with urban heat islands, or economic prosperity, or human productivity? What does North Korea look like? How about nuclear power plants? How about a comparison between young forests and old-growth forests, or between forests and grass-shrubland? Do these variations explain the wide variations in CO2 concentrations reported in peer-reviewed publications going back to the 1880’s that showed CO2 concentrations well above the currently accepted 280 ppm? Another inquiring mind just asking.

On the subject of awareness and how it leads to change — I started measuring my consumption across the board about nine months ago, and just by changing the way I travel, spend, and do things at home, brought my footprint down to where it is less than a tenth of the US average. I was halfway there when Tom Friedman dismissed the idea of personal conservation in his column, and I’m still stewing over it. An op-ed in the NY Times a few weeks ago said each person in the big 4 western economies — North America, Japan, Australia, and Western Europe — was consuming, on average, 32 times as much as a citizen of a developing country. So why *isn’t* there an organized, mainstream conservation movement in the US? Why is consumption non-negotiable for so many?

Responsibility for emissions falls heaviest on Americans whose backs are *not* against the wall, and who have the means to change if they can find the motivation.

There are already emissions reduction clubs in England and elsewhere on the continent and at least a few “radical reduction” groups online. (I subscribe to the 90% Reduction/Riot 4 Austerity group.) I’d like to see those of us who are ready to cut back take this movement mainstream. Leave the carping, denying and debating to people with nothing better to do and start bringing the damn numbers down.

Nice show!! Now we can see how CO2 emit from power plants and transportation. Amecrican east coast pollute so serious. Like this map, we can use it around world to moniter the world and take action where we should cut CO2 emission. The team of this map making do a very good job. People think out more and more methords to save our earth, blue beautiful planet. Hope think out more methords to control CO2 emission and keep our planet blue foever. By the way Andy Revkin, your book “the burning season” which I bought arrived to my hand, if we have time I will read it.

Check out this interactive US Carbon Footprint Map, an interactive United States Carbon Footprint Map, illustrating Greenest States to Cities. This site has all sorts of stats on individual State & City energy consumptions, demographics and much more down to your local US City level…

When NASA launches OCO late this year we will have better maps of this nature, globally. I predict that kim will say how these satellite measurements are flawed while the UAH microwave brightness temperatures are just fine; or that they are irrelevant because no-one should care about CO2: it’s benign, just like CFCs. Nice comments guys.

Do these variations explain the wide variations in CO2 concentrations reported in peer-reviewed publications going back to the 1880’s that showed CO2 concentrations well above the currently accepted 280 ppm? Another inquiring mind just asking.

Most everyone else on the planet has read or learned that CO2 is well-mixed in the atmosphere. One wonders why some commenters ask these questions – is it spreading FUD? Educated minds would recognize that rather than asking, some should be learning.

The poor, lone soul** who tried to show CO2 conc obviously had contaminants in his measurements. It’s abundantly obvious.

And does anyone cite the journal in which the lone soul published his groundbreaking, Galileo-like paper that will bring down the greenies? And how come denialists can’t name the “journal”? Will that ruin the argument immediately?

Best,

D

**Why do denialists rely on lone souls/crackpots/cranks? Have they nothing else?

It should be added that Beck’s [the lone soul -D] analysis also runs afoul of a basic accounting problem. Beck’s 11-year averages show large swings, including an increase from 310 to 420 ppm between 1920 and 1945 (Beck’s Figure 11). To drive an increase of this magnitude globally requires the release of 233 billion metric tons of C to the atmosphere. The amount is equivalent to more than a third of all the carbon contained in land plants globally. Other CO2 swings noted by Beck require similarly large releases or uptakes. To make a credible case, Beck would have needed to offer evidence for losses or gains of carbon of this magnitude from somewhere. He offered none.

The Beck article provides an interesting test case for E&E’s recently advertised willingness to serve as a forum for “skeptical analyses of global warming” (E&E mission statement, Dec. 2006). The result was the publication of a paper with serious conceptual oversights that would have been spotted by any reasonably qualified reviewer. Is it really the intent of E&E to provide a forum for laundering pseudo-science? I suggest that some clarification or review of the practice is appropriate.

or

In the light of the above, the whole “Discussion and Conclusion” section is invalid, including figures 11-14.

In summary, the paper lacks the very basic knowledge necessary to treat atmospheric CO2 concentration measurements properly. The author even accuses the pioneers Callendar and Keeling of selective data use, errors or even something close to data manipulation, but contrary to the author, Callendar and Keeling took the above into account.

It is shocking that this paper has been able to pass the journal’s referee system. “Energy and Environment” apparently has been unable to organise a proper peer review process for this paper, thereby discrediting the journal.

Selection and confirmation bias to support our views and identity, surely

Meltyman, I agree that CO2 is not benign. It is a fundamental requirement for all plant growth. I also do not think it is a hazard, or a pollutant, or a climate catastropher, at the levels it currently exists in the atmosphere.

Dano (RE #16),
There’s enough (real, verifiable, proven, peer reviewed, scrutinized, validated) data available to keep you busy for a lifetime. IF one wishes to look.

Which of course few GW “believers and followers” rarely ever do. Try leading for a while, if folks would only think for themselves instead of letting “hollywood enamored scientists” “pandering politicians with hidden agendas” and “media driven marketing machines” do it for them.

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By 2050 or so, the human population is expected to pass nine billion. Those billions will be seeking food, water and other resources on a planet where humans are already shaping climate and the web of life. Dot Earth was created by Andrew Revkin in October 2007 -- in part with support from a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship -- to explore ways to balance human needs and the planet's limits.